What Makes Sense About Rent-a-Roster

All this nonsense about the Dodgers becoming a team of ex-Red Sox and ex-Giants is exasperating.

Yes, ex marks the spot at Chavez Ravine, but there is more to it than former Red Sox and Giants.

The Dodgers are a team of transients, period.

Now, Nomar and the Nomads.

Have equipment bag, will travel.

For the second consecutive year, the projected opening-day lineup will not include one position player produced in the Dodger system.

With the signings of Nomar Garciaparra, Bill Mueller and Rafael Furcal completing the infield makeover, with Kenny Lofton ticketed for center field and Reggie Sanders or a player to be named expected to occupy left field, the Dodger opening-day lineup is likely to include seven position players acquired through free agency and one, catcher Dioner Navarro, via trade. In addition, at this point, the only sure bets as rotation starters -- Derek Lowe, Brad Penny and Odalis Perez -- were raised elsewhere, and it’s possible to project a bullpen in which Eric Gagne would be the only reliever to come out of the Dodger system.

Tradition?

That’s a foot-tapping song from “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Tradition as it once applied to an assembly-line Dodger farm system deteriorated -- in many respects -- over decades.

The absence of that pipeline depth has handcuffed a succession of general managers and has been illustrated by the club’s market activity of recent years -- often at a misguided price.

It is illustrated as well by the current determination to protect a nucleus of touted prospects and the possibility that the roster and payroll could finally begin to undergo a wholesale refurbishing in 2007.

No one is foolishly predicting that Chad Billingsley, Russell Martin, Joel Guzman, Andy LaRoche, Matt Kemp and others represent a truckload second coming on the order of the Steve Garvey, Bill Buckner, Ron Cey, Davey Lopes, Bill Russell breakthrough in the early 1970s.

However, there is a promise now that has been recently missing and that has provided the backdrop to an off-season in which new General Manager Ned Colletti has aggressively and impressively taken the first steps in rebuilding from the 91 losses of last season without mortgaging that future.

“I’m not patient enough to let ’06 go by the boards,” Colletti was saying at the Garciaparra news conference, “but I’m not impatient enough to rush these kids or trade them before I know more about them. I want to win this year, but I’m not going to sacrifice ‘07, ’08 and ’09 in the process. I mean, you can always trade one or two prospects, but you better make sure you trade the right ones.”

Prospects, of course, are only that until they’re not.

However, a veteran scout with knowledge of all the major league systems said Monday that the Dodgers “easily have the best collection of talent” and will have “more of it at the triple-A and double-A levels than any other organization.”

“The most difficult thing in baseball,” the scout continued, “is to win and replenish at the same time like Atlanta has done just about every year. It hasn’t been done in L.A. in a long time, but the Dodgers may be getting closer.”

In hopeful anticipation, Colletti has managed to rebuild his infield, filling major gaps at first and third base, on a short-term and comparatively inexpensive -- well, OK, there is nothing inexpensive about Furcal’s $13-million annual average -- basis. Furcal is signed for three years, Mueller for two and Garciaparra for one, as Lofton will be and Sanders might be.

There are issues of age and health throughout a revamped lineup, but with a starting pitcher or two still to come, Colletti has accomplished three things:

* Created potential fan appeal with marquee additions;

* Turned the team of 91 losses into a potential contender in a still-weak division;

* Kept the 2007 door open for that group of acknowledged prospects.

If Colletti and owner Frank McCourt ultimately reap the younger and cheaper benefit, they will owe thanks to former general manager Dan Evans, who inherited a system that was ranked 28th among the 30 teams and who created a front-office framework for the turnaround, with Logan White, Jeff Schugel and Rene Francisco responsible for the scouting and signing of many of those top-rated prospects.

Schugel left to work for the Angels in 2004, and Francisco, who was director of international scouting, recently left to join the Braves because of significant budget cuts in scouting and development by McCourt, a cautionary development amid all the enthusiasm over the revitalized system.

For now, at least, the Dodgers can point to that revitalized promise as a factor in their current approach, rebuilding around short-term mercenaries whose talent, they hope, isn’t also ex.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

*--* 1. Rafael Furcal SS 2. Kenny Lofton CF 3. J.D. Drew RF 4. Jeff Kent 2B 5. Nomar Garciaparra 1B 6. Bill Mueller 3B 7. Dioner Navarro C 8. Jose Cruz Jr. LF 9. Pitcher

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